'Midsummer Night's Dream' to be Performed April 13, 14, 16

COLUMBIA, Ky. -- It is William Shakespeare, but
probably not like you have seen it before, according to Lindsey
Wilson College Assistant Professor of Theater Robert Brock.

Brock will direct a production of Shakespeare's
comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream. The play will be
performed at 7:30 p.m. CT on April 13, 14 and 16 in the LWC V.P.
Henry Auditorium. The cost of admission is $5.

In Brock's production of A Midsummer Night's
Dream, the student actors will wear modern-day costumes,
rather than appear as characters from late-16th century
England.

"Imagine a 6-foot, 6-inch football player dressed as a really
big woman and you'll have some idea of how we're approaching this
production, " said Brock, who was artistic director at Kentucky
Repertory Theatre at Horse Cave before joining the LWC
faculty full-time this semester. "We're getting a really big
bra for that character."

Also appearing in the LWC production will be several confused
young lovers, love potions, lots of fairies, well-meaning workmen
making a hash of producing a play, and a young man with the body of
a human and the head of a donkey trying to find true love.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is the third play Brock
has directed at LWC. He has directed A Midsummer Night's
Dream a couple times before the upcoming production at
LWC.

"Young people especially enjoy performing in this play because
there is so much life in it, and it's just a very funny play,"
Brock said.

Although the LWC production will be set in the present rather
than in the late 1590s, when Shakespeare wrote it, there are many
similarities that span the 400 years, Brock said.

"The lovers aren't much different from today's young people --
trying to find true love in the face of interfering adults,
changing emotions and lots of misunderstandings," he said. "These
things haven't changed much since Shakespeare's day. That's why
Shakespeare is still one of our most-produced playwrights."

When Shakespeare wrote in A Midsummer Night's
Dream that "the course of true love never did run smooth"
and "Lord, what fools these mortals be" he wasn't kidding, Brock
said.

"In this production we do our best to show how much fun it is to
watch the reality of these famed lines unfold," he said.

"A Midsummer Night's Dream," directed by Robert Brock,
will be performed at 7:30 p.m. CT on April 13, 14, 16 at the
Lindsey Wilson College V.P. Henry Auditorium. For ticket
information: brockr@lindsey.edu or (270) 384-7382.